Ruth Ann Nordin's Blog, page 23

The Villain (A Storytelling Post)

While going through the administrative part of this blog, I saw that someone out there was searching for information about villains, and I thought this sounded like a fun topic to discuss.

So, today, I’m going to discuss the villain. In essence, a villain is the person or thing that stands in the hero’s way.

ID 204986041 © Paulus Rusyanto | Dreamstime.com

When we begin the story, we’re introduced to the hero, and usually, we’re given the hero’s normal world. Then, pretty soon, we should come to something that starts the hero on his journey. This is the hero’s goal. Regardless of the genre, the hero has to have a goal in order to give the book a plot. And in order for the story to be interesting, someone or something has to stand in the hero’s way of achieving this goal.

That someone or something is the villain. Some people call this the nemesis. Typically, we think of a villain as a person or a creature, but it can be anything that produces the source of conflict in the story. It can be an animal, such as a genetically modified dog that is hunting a group of hikers. It can be weather, such as a tornado that is making it hard for a father to get to his child. It can be a car that has a personality of its own and doesn’t want the hero to end up with the girl of his dreams. There are many things the villain can be. It can even be something the hero must overcome within himself. This “something” can be mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual. Off the top of my head, an example of a mental villain might be someone with a memory loss having to figure out the pieces of a puzzle in order to prove he didn’t kill his wife. Emotionally, the villain could be the pain someone went through in a divorce that is preventing the hero from falling in love again.

So really, the villain is a pretty broad range of things. The writer’s task is to pair the right villain up with the hero’s greatest weakness. The villain has to present something that could be the undoing of the hero. The higher the stakes, the more exciting the story is. You can’t just throw any obstacle at the hero. The obstacle has to target the hero’s weakness.

In real life, everyone faces problems. Depending on our personalities, we’ll deal with these problems differently. Someone who isn’t all that concerned with finances is going to shrug off a huge repair bill, but someone who is concerned with finances is going to freak out when confronted with an unexpected bill that throws them off of their carefully laid out budgeting plans. Or let’s say we have an issue with faith. Let’s say that someone claiming to be a “prophet of God” insists that Event A is going to happen, but it never comes to pass. Someone who doesn’t believe in God isn’t going to be impacted by this. But someone who does believe in God might be confronted with a crisis of faith where he has to carefully evaluate what he believes in and why.

So when you’re looking at the kind of villain to give your hero, it’s necessary to know your hero’s vulnerable area. This villain is only effective if he/it can punch a hole right into that vulnerable spot. You can’t just give the hero a series of “problems” and say something is happening. There might be something happening, but it’s not the least bit interesting if those problems are just “meh” to our hero. You want to concentrate on one major problem the hero needs to overcome because this one problem is the plot of the book. You can put in smaller obstacles along the way that propel our hero forward to the conclusion of resolving the major problem. But you have to give an obstacle to the hero in every single chapter. You need some chapters where things calm down. The hero (and the reader) needs time to decompress from a high stress event. No one can run on adrenaline all the time.

Storytelling is like a range of hills. The valleys are your low tension events. The peaks of the hills are the high tension events. A short story will only have one hill. A long story will have a series of them. During the valleys, the hero is given time to rest while the villain is working on the next obstacle. Each obstacle should work toward increasing the conflict. It’s like turning the heat up in a pot. The beginning of the story starts at a simmer, the middle is where things are starting boil, and the end is where its boiling. The very end of the story is the climax, and this is the largest hill. It is where the final battle between the hero and villain takes place. If the hero wins, the villain is conquered once and for all. This is the happy ending. If the villain wins, the hero is defeated once and for all. The hero will never reach his goal. It’s game over. This is the sad ending.

One thing I want to note about sad endings is that they are not always bad. Something a sad ending is actually the most effective way to end a story. It can be the twist that is needed to make the biggest impact. The writer’s goal in any story is to give the most effective ending possible. Romance is the only genre that you must have a happy ending for. The couple must end up together. If the couple doesn’t end up together, you have a love story. It is not a romance. I have yet to read a fantasy that has a sad ending, so this might be a rule in fantasy, too. But other genres seem to be more flexible in allowing the villain to win.

An Earl In Time is a Dark Fairytale Romance (A Warning to Those Who Don’t Like Dark Fiction)

So as I writing today, a scene came up that took a very dark turn. This was not something I had anticipated when I started this book, and it wasn’t something I thought would happen when I got the cover. The man and woman still fit. The title still fits.

But the subtitle is not really an accurate portrayal of things. I mean, there is a time travel aspect. So technically, it’s okay there. The thing is that this book is far darker than I expected. Think of the original fairy tales (not the cute Disney ones). Think of fairy tales where Rumpelstiltskin wanted the woman’s firstborn child for helping her turn hay into gold, where the witch lured Hansel and Gretel with a house made of candy in hopes that she would get to eat them, or a wolf ate a girl’s grandmother and then tried to eat her, too. When I was a little kid, Little Red Riding Hood gave me nightmares. These are dark fairy tales. They have dark elements in them. In the end, however, good won out, and that’s how things will play out in this book as well.

When I wrote the Marriage by Fairytale Series, I got a few comments about how gruesome and violent The Wedding Pact and The Duke’s Secluded Bride were.

 

One beta reader was so shocked that she said she couldn’t believe I could write a villain as terrible as the one I had in The Duke’s Secluded Bride and write someone as wonderful as Dave Larson in Eye of the Beholder. (I actually took that as a compliment since I like knowing I can run the spectrum on heroes and villains.)

Mostly, though, I received comments from people who said that they never want to read anything like The Wedding Pact and The Duke’s Secluded Bride ever again. They asked me to let them know if I was going to write a book similar to those so that they could avoid them. Since I said I would, this post is the warning. If you didn’t like The Wedding Pact or The Duke’s Secluded Bride, skip An Earl In Time. It’s actually worse than those.

The dark elements involve a curse and a villain who was willing to sacrifice her own baby for eternal youth (so you can imagine what she’s willing to do to the hero and heroine). Though to be fair, the dark stuff comes in toward the last 1/4 of the book, which is what I’m working on right now. I don’t start out knee-deep in dark territory, though I do hint at it through the use of “a bloody legend” and the fact that the heroine gets isolated from the rest of the world.

The story starts out in our contemporary time where the heroine inherits an estate that she is unable to leave or sell. She comes upon our hero who is stuck in a parallel reality (due to magic), except he’s been living out the same day over and over (June 17, 1817) for two centuries. It’s only when the heroine steps into his time that the hero is able to move forward in time again. The heroine is now in 1817 with him and is unable to return to her time (nor does she really want to because the hero is handsome and pleasant to be around). Things evolve from there as they try to figure out why they can’t leave the property, and, of course, they fall in love, get married, and the book becomes a steamy romance.

As with quite a few fairy tales, I’ve brought in the element of fantasy where magic is at play. I’ve been advised by fantasy writes to make sure my magic comes with rules. I’ve been trying to watch these rules so I don’t break them, but I have learned the benefit of rules is to give the hero and heroine a high-stakes obstacle to overcome. But there is a flip side. Since this is a romance, I’ve gone the route of “true love” having its own magic, and this will be an obstacle to the villain. As a kid, I’ve always like the “true love” element of fairy tales, so I wanted to incorporate it into this book.

I don’t know how many people I just lost by writing this post, but I don’t want anyone reading this if it’s not your cup of tea. I’ll link back to this post in future as needed just in case someone missed it this time. That way, I don’t repeat myself like crazy for the rest of the year. I’m hoping to get this book out in November or December, though I guess it would make a good Halloween read for people who like romance and some gothic fiction. So maybe I’ll make it an October release.

Perfectly Matched is Now Available!

This is the second book for Tom and Jessica Larson’s daughters.

Here are the books in the Husbands for the Larson Sisters Series:

      (Book 4)

It’s going to contain four books in all, but I don’t have the title or plot idea yet for Book 4.

Here’s the description:

Jim Griffin is in trouble. The moment he arrives in Omaha looking for a place to stay, Patricia and Erin Larson have decided he will marry one of them. And the longer he’s a guest in their home, the louder those wedding bells are ringing!

Their father isn’t as excited by the prospect of an upcoming marriage as they are, and he does everything he can to discourage Jim from getting too close to them. Meanwhile, their mother has other plans and is more than happy to look for ways to get him to spend time with each of them.

This cute, sweet, and clean romantic comedy takes a look an overwhelmed bachelor who is at the mercy of two sisters who are determined to get a husband.

Here’s where you can find it:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple

Smashwords

Google Play

What To Do When Your Series is a Dud (A Post For Authors)

As authors, we write the best stories we can. Regardless of whether we’re writing for passion or writing to market, the goal is to produce our best work. And while we might think that what we’re writing is our best, unfortunately, a lack of sales and negative reviews tell us it’s not. If you’ve written enough books, you know what I’m talking about. Every author, at some point in their writing career, will face a book or a series that, for whatever reason, didn’t meet expectations. For the sake of this post, I’m going to talk directly about series, but this applies to standalone books, too.

ID 120499759 © Constantine Johnny | Dreamstime.com

There are several reasons why a series fails to meet up to our expectations. It could be that we rushed the series before we gave it enough time to percolate in our minds. We might feel pressured by a deadline or have some readers who are anxious for the books, so we do whatever we can to get them out there as soon as possible. Or maybe we happen to be at a difficult period in our lives where it’s hard to give our everything to our work. Anything that puts us under stress (whether it be loved ones, financial burdens, or even our health) can affect our ability to focus clearly when we’re writing. Or maybe what we’re writing doesn’t meet a defined set of expectations for a particular genre. Whether we want to hear it or not, most readers go into a series with a set of expectations for the genre they like to read. If we don’t meet those expectations, we often disappoint them. That doesn’t mean the series is bad; it just means that the series didn’t satisfy the list of things they wanted to read when they picked up the series.

Most series, thankfully, meet up to our expectations, and every series we put out there will stay published as long as two things are accomplished. These two things are good sales or good reviews. You don’t need both of these. You just need one. If you don’t have one of these, then it’s really hard to convince yourself the series is worth keeping up.

This leads me to the topic of this post. What if the sales AND reviews on your series suck? What are your options?

1. Take the series down.

I’ve done this to some books in the past. What’s the point in having something up there that obviously disappoints a lot of people? We already take a hit from the negative comments that come in our emails, blogs, social media messages, and the like. We are aware that our books don’t please everyone. Having the books stay up there where they continue to get slammed while not making money off of them gives us no incentive to keep them published. In fact, it often seems like those books are making us look worse.

We only get one book to make a good impression. Readers don’t usually purchase another book unless they like the first one they pick up, and we have no control over which book they will choose to read first. Making sure each book is liked by the majority of people who read them is in our best interest. We don’t aim to please everyone; we just aim to please the people who read our genre.

There’s nothing wrong with unpublishing anything. Contrary to what some will say, you don’t have to keep up everything you’ve ever done.

2. Rewrite the series (or the weak books in the series) and republish it.

If you love the series, this is worth pursuing. But this has to be a series that you are absolutely passionate about. It’s worthless if you’re just writing to market. If you’re writing to market, just move on to another idea because there’s a chance this rewrite might not pay off.

Here’s what I do when I’m not sure if a book is worth republishing or not. After I’ve unpublished the book, I work on other books. I wait a year or two. If that book keeps poking at me to put it back up, I’ll rewrite it and republish it. If I have no such inkling to get it out there ever again, I let it go. This is a long-term approach, but I’ve never regretted doing a full rewrite if the book kept prodding me to work on it.

Now, some series won’t require extensive rewrites on all of the books. There might be one or two that needs work. I’ve done it both ways. If you believe in your series and totally love it but have one weak book, it might be worth taking that weak book and giving it an overhaul. But only you can determine if this series is worth it because you’re the one who is emotionally invested in it. It’s highly unlikely that a reader is going to love your books as much as you do.

Never put in this work and effort for an “eh” series. In my experience, it hasn’t been worth it. I’ve made this mistake early on, and I wasted half a year on this fruitless endeavor. In the end, I unpublished it all over again, and this time I put it away for good. I haven’t missed those books at all.

3. Write a brand new series with the same ideas or characters.

This is kind of like the rewrite, but it’s not. You’re basically starting from scratch. Everything can be different. Sometimes you can fall in love with your characters and not want to unpublish “them”. If that’s the case, you can bring them back and put them in a different storyline. Give them different conflicts to overcome. And if, let’s say, you didn’t like the characters, create new ones. Then put them in the same idea you had before. You’d be surprised how much a story changes when you bring in different characters. Maybe these characters will make your original story idea stronger.

One exercise to try (and I do this, too) is to work on a story/series in your mind for a few weeks. Don’t write anything out. Just let things evolve in the mind. Explore the different angles you can try. See what would happen if certain things were changed. Then decide if any of those scenarios spark your interest. If something deep within gets excited by one of the avenues you mulled over, then it’s worth a closer look.

Updates on What I’m Doing

For the time being, I’m putting An Earl In Time on hold

I am having an author friend go through it for me to help me figure out where I went off the rails with this one. The beginning is perfect. I love it as is. But there’s something that developed around the time the hero and heroine meet that is off. I’m having trouble pinpointing it, which is why I asked my friend for help.

My friend is doing a wonderful job of helping me already, but I want to take time to really think everything through. My plan is to take notes on her suggestions, put them aside, and let my mind work on it. In the meantime, I’ll work on other books.

This morning, I sat down to readjust my publishing schedule for the rest of the year.

Perfectly Matched (Husbands for the Larson Sisters Series: Book 2) is still set for March 27

This is already completed in its final version. Thankfully, it happened before all of the commotion started around here.

A Perilous Marriage (Marriage by Necessity Series: Book 1) has been moved to May 27

At the moment, I’m having a situation where I have some house repairs that need to be done, and this has made it hard for me to sit down and focus. Instead of pushing myself to get this polished up and out into the world by May 7th, I decided to move it to May 27.

Interview for a Wife (Nebraska Prairie Series: Book 3)

I’m moving this to July. It will finish the Nebraska Prairie Series.

   

I’m putting The Cursed Earl (Marriage by Necessity Series: Book 2) for September

On Smashwords, I put October, just in case this ends up getting delayed. Originally, I had slotted Heiress of Misfortune for Book 2, but as I was wrapping up A Perilous Marriage, the more logical book to do next was this one. I shifted Heiress of Misfortune to a January/February 2022 release.

Suitable for Marriage (Husbands for the Larson Sisters Series: Book 3) is expected out in November

I have no idea for the Daisy Larson (the youngest of Tom and Jessica’s daughters), so my plan is to work on Jeremiah’s romance (Wyoming Series: Book 4) after I finish up Suitable for Marriage. I’d like to get Jeremiah’s story out in March 2022.

Making a Realistic Publishing Schedule has been cancelled for the year

I have put this book on hold for the whole year. I was going to get this out in the summer, but with everything that’s going on, there’s just no way it’s happening.

The Benefit of Writing About The Larsons Using The Multiple Series’ Method

Today’s topic is mainly about why I love writing multiple series in the same world instead of writing one really long series. I notice the way I present my reasoning does jump around a bit. I tried not to make it so jumpy, but apparently, my brain doesn’t follow a linear path all that well.

Perfectly Matched opens with Patricia and Erin, Tom and Jessica’s daughters who are now grown up, talking about how their parents met at a barn dance. They mention how their father was clumsy and nearly ruined their mother’s hair. I wrote about this years ago in A Bride for Tom. I have made other references to this incident in Shotgun Groom, too, but this time it’s coming from the angle of other characters. And to be honest, it’s really fun to get a different character’s perspective on the same event. While Joel was laughing about the event because he thought Tom was a doofus, Patricia and Erin think it’s romantic because their father was so nervous around their mother.

In the Nebraska Series, Tom’s mostly viewed as a bit of a goofy character who is naive in some ways. But when you branch out to the Husbands for the Larson Sisters Series (which is the one that involves Patricia and Erin), Tom isn’t that type of character at all. Instead, Tom is a well-meaning protective father who would do anything for his daughters. According to his daughters, he is larger than life, and I really don’t think any father is more loved than Tom in any of the books I’ve ever written. If Joel ever started cracking jokes at Tom’s expense when those girls are around, they would be the first in line to defend him. So Joel better watch himself when he’s around these four girls.

While writing Perfectly Matched, I thought back to Eye of the Beholder when Nelly and Patricia were hanging on to Tom’s legs. I didn’t plan for that incident to be a foreshadowing of how the future was going to play out with this family, but it turned out to be that way. Maybe the subconscious mind knew they would grow up to have a close relationship with their father. At the time I wrote Eye of the Beholder, I just felt it in my gut that Tom should have all girls. But, I did feel a little sorry for him since he really wanted to toss around a ball with a boy, so I’m going to give him all grandsons.

Back to the leveraging of past books to enhance a current one…

In Perfectly Matched, Patricia tells Jim about the time her father was on the wagon trail. I just glossed over it in this book, but it was really fun to bring up that incident from the Larsons’ past. I wrote about this time in Wagon Trail Bride. Eye of the Beholder was the first Larson book I wrote, and in there, Dave told Mary about his family leaving New York because his father wanted to get land out in Nebraska. It was a treat to give this perspective from a member of the Larson family who was born after the event.

When I look at the Larson books, I don’t see them as individual books. I actually see them as one large book. To me, the individual books are really chapters. They’re all connected. In fact, I see the Regency books the same way. Even though we’re not dealing with one specific family in the Regencies, I keep everything in the same world. I even used Nelly’s Mail Order Husband to connect the Regencies to the Larsons by making the hero of that book a descendant of Lord Edon. Early on, I had been itching to somehow link the Larsons with the Lord Edon or Mr. Christopher Robinson (because they’re my favorite Regency characters), and I finally got my chance with Nelly’s book.

Being able to write multiple series within the same world gives me greater freedom to flesh out the characters. I don’t have to stick with one particular generation or focus only in on one branch of the family line. I can go down whatever branch I want. For example, I get to see Tom and Jessica when they’re young and fall in love. I also get to see them as parents later on in their lives.

I also like doing multiple series in the same world because I can move around to whatever interests me at the moment. I don’t like having to go write in chronological order. I know some authors do this, and I understand some readers prefer this method since it’s easy to keep track of everyone. That method has just never worked for me. I have to go with the story (or series) that I’m itching to write at the moment. That’s why I started out writing about Dave and Mary’s children and stopped. After writing Harriett’s story, I lost interest in Dave and Mary’s kids. I still have Adam, Jacob, and Eli to write about. I don’t know when I’ll get to them, but they are on the “To Write” list.

Right after finishing Wagon Trail Bride, I wanted to write about Richard and Amanda’s children so that I could “see” Richard and Amanda years after they had gotten established in Omaha. I figured with all the pain Amanda had been through, it would be nice to see how her future with Richard ended up. For me, writing romances for Tony, Mark, and Annabelle was a way for me to see Richard and Amanda’s extended happy ending. So really, Wagon Trail Bride isn’t complete (in my mind) without The Rejected Groom, The Perfect Wife, and The Imperfect Husband. Once I got those all ironed out, I was ready to move to another Larson. In this case, I had the urge to write about Tom and Jessica’s daughters, so that is what I’m currently working on.

I’m not sure what will be up next. I have no idea what I want to do for Daisy, so I might take a break from the Larsons. I do want to write Jeremiah’s romance in the Wyoming Series. That will probably be the book that I’ll focus on. I’d like to get to Daisy’s romance afterwards, but we’ll see where inspiration takes me.

Decided to Write Jeremiah’s Romance (Wyoming Series Will Get a 4th Book)

Here’s the Wyoming Series at a glance to help refresh everyone’s memory because looking at a cover helps remember what book an author is talking about:

   

After The Rancher’s Bride came out, I guess Jeremiah appealed to quite a few people because I have been asked if I’ll write his book. The truth is, I did have someone in mind for him, but the age difference between him and the heroine was greater than what I usually do. I had discussed this age difference early on with a friend, and this person advised me to replace this heroine with someone else. The thing was, I didn’t want to pair him up with someone else. So in the end, I decided the best thing to do was not write the book. That way I could avoid upsetting a lot of people. But then I had a conversation with someone else, and this person pointed out a book where there was a big difference in ages between the hero and heroine. Then I thought in real life, how many men marry women a lot younger than them?

Alright, so here’s the deal. I always had it in my mind that Jeremiah was going to end up with Katie. The problem was that Katie had to be a child in The Rancher’s Bride because that’s how the story worked best for Abby and Thayne’s story. They needed a matchmaking meddler for the story to work. Originally, she was seven (I think), but I bumped her age to ten to make her more mature in the story. I couldn’t, however, make her too much older because she still needed to have some inexperience in order for her matchmaking schemes to come off as innocent rather than manipulative.

Jeremiah’s age was set because of Wade. Wade and Jeremiah grew up as practically brothers, but Jeremiah had to be older than him because he was someone Wade could look to for advice. Wade wasn’t the personality type to take advice from his younger siblings, even if they did make some good points. Someone of Wade’s personality needed someone like Jeremiah to keep him from making rash decisions that would have gotten him killed. So Jeremiah had to be older than Wade. Jeremiah was 34 in The Rancher’s Bride. Katie was 10. This makes him 24 years older than Katie.

Katie is the only person I’m interested in pairing him up with, and I’ll list two reasons.

1. Katie and Jeremiah are prominent characters in the Wyoming Series. I prefer to stick with core characters when I do a series. Introducing a brand new character in Book 4 doesn’t have the same appeal to me as using an existing character who has a history in the series. That is why I paired Wade up with Millie. We saw Millie in the opening scene of The Outlaw’s Bride. For me, it was fun to find out what happened to her and to follow her story from there. I introduced Katie in The Rancher’s Bride. I don’t have to go and create a brand new character when Katie is already there.

2. Jeremiah’s closed off, romantically speaking. He needs someone who has the ability to get through his wall. In order for that to happen, he needs someone who has a sunny outlook on life, is persistent, and is willing to do whatever it takes to wiggle her way into getting what she wants. That fits Katie perfectly. Katie is the only one who can do this. I didn’t intentionally set it up that when I wrote The Rancher’s Bride, but I believe the subconscious part of the brain plays a bigger role in connecting things up in storytelling better than the conscious mind does. This is why I’ve long ago learned to “trust the process”. Somehow, things end up falling into place, and the right characters end up coming together. I don’t consciously pick who ends up with who once I set up Book 1. If I were to try to fix Jeremiah up with anyone else, the story wouldn’t work because he’s not meant to be with anyone else.

I don’t know how many people are put off by the age difference between Jeremiah or Katie, but if you are, this is a book you’ll want to avoid.

Katie is going to be an adult when I write about her and Jeremiah. She’s going to volunteer at the orphanage and young men are going to come by to court her. Jeremiah’s going to be shocked by how old she’s gotten since she’s been out at the ranch with Abby and Thayne most of the time, and Jeremiah will fight his attraction for her because of his age and the fact that he had sworn he’d never marry again. Katie’s going to see him in a new light at the beginning of the story, too, but unlike Jeremiah, she’s not going to fight her feelings for him. So that’s pretty much the setup for the story, and I’m excited about writing it. I even got a cover made for it.

Right now I’m working on A Perilous Marriage, An Earl In Time, Interview for a Wife, and Suitable for Marriage. A Perilous Marriage is almost done. I’m getting close to the end. But when I finish that one, I’m going directly to Heiress of Misfortune because it comes right after A Perilous Marriage, and I want to keep the events from A Perilous Marriage fresh in my mind. So I’m going to start Jeremiah’s romance once I am done with An Earl In Time or Interview for a Wife. It depends on which one gets done first. Regardless, I probably won’t have Jeremiah’s book ready until about March 2022.

I know that seems like a long time from now, and I am anxious to start this book now that I have the stage set for it, but I’m going to be good and finish the other books first.

What I’m Working On

Where to start? There’s so much to include. I’ll try to make things brief so the post doesn’t get too long.

Perfectly Matched will be out March 27

(Husbands for the Larson Sisters Series: Book 2)

This one is now up on pre-order on Amazon, B&N, Kobo, and Apple. Here’s the page where you can find it if you want to reserve your copy today: https://ruthannnordinauthorblog.com/chronological-order-of-my-books/my-historical-westerns/husbands-for-the-larson-sisters-series/perfectly-matched-husbands-for-the-larson-sisters-book-2/

As a quick reminder, this is Patricia Larson’s romance. She’s the second daughter of Tom and Jessica. This is a cute romantic comedy, and for those of you who prefer romances that contain little to no sex, this one has only kissing in it.

A Perilous Marriage

(Marriage by Necessity Series: Book 1)

I’m hoping to get this out on May 7, but I’m currently behind schedule, so I might have to push the date back. The good news is that I managed to get to 50,000 words before I was forced to take a week and a half off from writing. I suspect this book will be another 10,000 to 15,000 words before it’s done. As long as no other surprises come up, I should be able to get this out on time.

An Earl In Time

(standalone time travel romance with a fairytale feel to it)

I’m planning for this one to come out in July or September. I’m 54,000 words into this one, but it’s turning into a longer story than my usual 60,000-65,000 word count. I suspect we’re looking at 80,000 or so for this one. If I can’t get this out in July, I’d like to get Interview for a Wife out in July instead.

Interview for a Wife

(Nebraska Prairie Series: Book 3)

As a quick reminder since I only recently created the Nebraska Prairie Series, Books 1-2 used to be in anthologies I had under a publisher. I got the rights back to Books 1-2 last year, republished them, and decided to add Book 3 to the series.

The Purchased Bride was in the Bride by Arrangement anthology, and The Bride’s Choice was in the A Groom’s Promise anthology. If you have those anthologies, you already have these books.

I’ll post the anthology covers for quick reference and then post the new covers for the individual books.

Anthology covers:

 

Individual books:

   

I’m currently at 25,000 words in Interview for a Wife, and it’s looking like I’m about halfway into it. That’s why this one might come out before An Earl In Time.

Suitable for Marriage

(Husbands for the Larson Sisters Series: Book 3)

I’m hoping to get this out in November. I’ve gotten 9,000 words into it so far. This is Erin Larson’s romance. Erin is Tom and Jessica’s third daughter. At this point, it looks like it’ll be another cute romantic comedy, but we’ll see as the story progresses.

***

I finally updated the old covers for the South Dakota Series. I’ve been itching to do this for years, but until recently, I didn’t find the right models I was looking for.

I have to give a shout-out to Book Brush for how easy they make creating book covers.

I’m not sure how many authors bother reading these posts about my works in progress, but Book Brush has a background remove feature that allows you to remove a white/gray background from a model so that only the model remains. It can take a long time to remove models from a background if you use a program like GIMP. I still use GIMP, but it’s for the small touches rather than the main cover itself. Anyway, Book Brush allows you to easily take the model and place it in any new background picture you want. The whole process takes less than five minutes once you figure it out. Book Brush also includes fonts for the text.

I typically buy model photos from Period Images since they have models in historical clothes and have a focus on romance. I use the background photos from Dreamstime.

With that aside, here are the old covers for the South Dakota Series:

   

(Some of you may remember this cover for Bride of Second Chances since it’s the original one:)

And here are the new ones:

   

If you see those covers change on your e-reading device, it’s because I changed them. I know this can be startling, and you end up wondering if this was a book you’ve already read. The same thing happens to me when an author updates their covers. The reason we update covers is to look more professional.

The Danger of Unrealistic Expectations (A Serious Flaw in the Writing to Market Mindset)

*Note: When I speak of “writing to market”, I am including the “writing to trend/fad” under this umbrella.

ID 110017464 © Ognyan Chobanov | Dreamstime.com

I’m sure by now everyone is aware that I’m opposed to the Write to Market strategy. Today, I’m going to list another reason why I hate it so much. (In fact, the more I explore it, the more I hate it.)

At the moment, I am having my kid go through a book titled Common Sense Business (Principles for Profitable Leadership) by Theodore Roosevelt Malloch and Whitney MacMillan. This is for his homeschool class titled Business: Sole Proprietorship. I figured since I run a business (which is being an independent writer), I would teach him what really goes into entrepreneurship.

While I was reading this book to prepare the lessons on common sense ways to run a business, I came across a portion that addressed the false notion that we must ALWAYS win. Winning, in terms of business, is all about profits. It’s this idea that we must see success after success, and the more we get, the more we’ll continue to get. The book continued to state that the culture in the United States is based on this unending increase that leaves no room for drops in income or failures.

As I was reading the book, I realized this mindset has trickled into the writing community. The whole purpose of writing to market is to win all the time. It’s about making more and more money. There might be a book here and there that doesn’t perform well, but the belief is that you WILL make more this year than you did last year, and you WILL make more next year than you will this year. And on and on it goes. The expectation is that it’s always going to be better. And if you don’t continue to win, you have not done something right.

So basically, it trains authors to feel like failures if their income drops. This is why when authors lament that they had a drop in income, they get bombarded with things the author did wrong. Their cover is lousy. Their description needs work. Their keywords are wrong. They didn’t do the right ads. They didn’t do enough ads. Their story sucks. Their website needs an overhaul. They aren’t engaging enough on social media. Etc, etc, etc.

There is always a reason to blame the author for a lack of sales. The writing to market mindset ignores the reality that sometimes you can do everything right and still see a drop in income. It is NOT always the author’s fault. The world we live in is ripe for success, but sometimes failure comes into the equation, too. It’s not realistic to think that everything must continue to go up. There are times they come back down. We will all face failure at some point because no one is perfect. Can we improve something with our book? Sure. But will it ever be perfect? No. Perfection is a myth.

When you give yourself over to this myth that you can create the perfect book with the perfect metadata and the perfect marketing plan, you’re going to end up disappointed. You face enough of these disappointments, and you’ll end up losing your enthusiasm for writing. The love you once had for creating new stories will wane. Writing will get harder and harder. The pressure to sell more is going to take over, and if you can’t hit the amount of sales you want, you’re going to get increasingly frustrated until you grow to hate writing.

Life is all about ups and downs. It’s just part of the ebb and flow of human existence.

This is true for every area of our lives. Do you have a good day every single day of your life? Does everything always go your way? Is today better than yesterday? Is tomorrow guaranteed to be better than today? Will next week be better than this one? Can you rely on things always being wonderful? Are the people around you always pleasant to be with? Are you always pleasant around them? Are the things you own always working like they should? Are you blessed with a repair-free existence? What about your health? Have you been well every single day you’ve been alive?

I could go on, but you get my point. If other areas in our lives are filled with ups and downs (good times and bad), then how can we expect writing to be any different?

“But, Ruth,” someone might say. “You can control your books.”

While that is true, you can’t control who buys it. That’s a factor that no author, regardless of how good they are at everything else, can accommodate for.

And yet, this is what writing to market is all about. Even if it’s not said aloud, the expectation is there. Writing to market gives the unrealistic promise that if you follow a specific formula, you’re guaranteed success because you are writing what people want to buy. This mindset is dangerous because it’s not grounded in reality. It sets the bar way too high.

As much as I hate to say it, the people selling courses promising that “you too can make tons of money if you follow their strategies” are making a big chunk of their income selling courses to authors. There’s good money to be had in these courses. When they brag about their “six figure income”, how much of that is from the courses they’re selling?

Regarding authors who brag about their “six-figure incomes”, how much of the money they make is partly due to the fact that they have an “in” at retailers you don’t, such as a personal rep at Amazon who can help place their book in front of more customers? I’ve personally benefited from special treatment at Apple years back (don’t remember how long ago at this point, but it was when self-publishing was taking off). The special placement I got from Apple helped me gain a footing over there that I otherwise would not have had. Also, how many of these authors know other authors who have a big readership to give the book exposure you can’t? Years ago, I remember Dave Ramsey mentioning a book on Amazon that had to do with building good habits. After Dave Ramsey mentioned that book, it zoomed way up in the charts at Amazon. Now, in this case, I don’t think the author knew Dave when Dave mentioned him on the show. But there are authors in the writing community who know each other, and group promotions happen. These promotions are legit. I’m just pointing out that being mentioned by a highly influential person can give you certain perks not available to other authors.

The extra perks some authors have change the equation quite a bit. That’s why you can’t compare yourself to someone else. Just because an author is making a certain amount of money, it doesn’t mean you will. The writing to market community fails to point this out. They make it sound like if you follow the advice in a certain book or course, you’re going to sell a lot of books. So you’re left believing that if you aren’t making the kind of money these other authors are, you are a failure, and you’re often blamed for not doing something right.

If you’re starting out today, it is possible for you to pay bills and even make a living, but be prepared for some ups and downs along the way. Things don’t play out the same way for everyone. If I had not started out back in 2009 with ebooks, I doubt I would be where I’m at today. Timing places a big role in success. Those who hit something big early benefit from it. Look at Bitcoin. I remember my sister telling me about Bitcoin about a decade ago. I wish I had gotten some back then. But that ship has long sailed for me. However, I did luck out with the writing thing. Would I be able to make good money if I started out today? I don’t know because I’m not starting out today, but my gut tells me there is no way. The field is different than it used to be. Back then, there were so few ebooks out that it was easy to get noticed. Now there’s a ton of books available, and a lot of them look professional. It’s hard to distinguish one book from another sometimes.

There is hope. I see people starting out who have been able to make money. Some supplement their income. Others quit their jobs and write full time. It’s going to be different for every author. You do your best and hope it pays off. That’s all any business owner does, whether it’s in the creative arts or running a restaurant or a store. Not all businesses succeed. It could be that you do everything right and still don’t make it. That is not your fault. It’s just the way life is.

Here’s the truth about the writing business. Income goes up and down. Some books sell better than others. Some books will receive praise and others will receive criticism. You can’t hit a home run every time you go up to bat. You’ll have years that are great and years that aren’t so great. That’s okay. I really think the writing to market mindset puts way too much pressure on authors, and I’m afraid all it does is weaken their joy and enthusiasm for writing. Writing should be a reward in itself. I realize you can’t eat joy and enthusiasm, but it sure is a lot easier to write when you’re enjoying what you’re doing. That’s why having realistic expectations are so important. Realistic expectations prepares you for the ups and downs that come with writing, and I believe that, ultimately, they lead you to a sense of peace that I don’t think exists in the writing to market community.

Why I Hate Sad Endings

ID 44418116 © Vvvita | Dreamstime.com

As I was browsing WWII movies for my homeschool kid to watch, I ended up down a rabbit trail and saw a movie that looked like a cute romance with a feel good ending.

The reason I believed this movie was a romance is that it was branded as a romance. It had a cute cover with a man and a woman on it. The trailer made you think there’s going to be a happy ending. At first, the trailer presents a man who is bitter due to his paralysis, but later in the trailer, you see him laughing because the woman has come into his life and cheered him up. I get that trailers aren’t there to give away the ending, but the entire way this trailer and the movie cover were presented screamed “this is a romance where the couple ends up together”. This is part of branding. Other movie trailers have been like that. Other movies have used covers like that. In other words, this particular movie followed all of the tropes that actual romance movies do. This sets up the expectation that this movie would be a romance as well.

A part of branding comes in with customer expectation. The marketing department is responsible for tying in key ingredients to alert the right audience that THIS is the movie for them. (The same thing happens with books.) If you promise something you don’t deliver on, you’re going to upset people, and those people won’t want to watch/read anything else because you will have lost your credibility.

Anyway… I scrolled through the reviews because I happen to be the person who wants to know what I’m getting myself into before I read a book or watch a movie. (Since I have a husband and four kids, homeschool one kid, and write books, I have a very limited amount of free time on my hands. That being the case, I don’t want to waste that free time on something I won’t enjoy.)

I saw a review that said something along the lines of, “Terrific movie. Get your tissues ready. He’s going to do the best thing for her and let her live a life with a man who is normal. He’s making the ultimate sacrifice just for her. How touching!” I’m paraphrasing, but that was pretty much the gist of the review, and it told me this is NOT a romance. How can it be? The main characters don’t end up together.

My original thought was that the man, who is bound to a wheelchair, decided to tell the woman it would never work. I thought that was why they didn’t end up together. That, in itself, would have been a bummer. But it’s actually worse than I thought because as I continued scrolling through the reviews, it turns out he ends up committing suicide so that the woman he loves (who happens to love him back) will be free to be with a man who can walk. (Or, in the words of the reviewer, “Give her a normal relationship.”)

I can’t tell you how much that ending upset me. One reviewer basically said that the movie missed the potential to show how a disabled man could find redemption and hope despite his circumstances. I wholeheartedly agree. I know people who have loved ones who are disabled. They’ll never live “normal” lives. But does that mean their lives have less value? I understand not all disabled people can fall in love and get married (as is the case with my friend’s grown son who has low-functioning autism). But the character in this movie is paralyzed and in a wheelchair. He has the mental and emotional capacity to love and be loved in a romantic sense. So why shouldn’t he be allowed that? Just because he can’t have sex or have children, he’s not deserving of love? There’s more to love than the physical intimacy side of things. There’s companionship. If my husband ever ends up being unable to be intimate with me, I’m staying with him. You don’t flush love down the toilet because things aren’t perfect. But that is, in essence, the message in this movie.

Also, I was floored by how many reviewers thought this movie was a romance. It was a tragedy, not a romance. Is it any wonder why there are authors out there who think their books are romances when the couple does not end up together due to separation or death? It’s movies like this that make the romance genre difficult to explain to new writers who want to place their books in the romance category when their books don’t belong there. These are authors who want to give a tragic ending to the story, but they want to label it as a romance because romance is popular and they want the book to be in a popular category. They do this in hopes of increasing sales, not because they understand the romance genre or even care to understand it. Readers like romance because the couple ends up together. That’s the whole point of romance.

I don’t know if any writers are reading this, but when you are working on your cover and book description, make sure you focus in on what the book is really about. Don’t promise something that’s not there. If you have a serious story, have the cover and book description reflect that. Don’t make the reader think they’re getting themselves into one thing when you deliver on something entirely different.

I’m so glad people leave reviews, esp. the spoiler ones. If it hadn’t been for those reviews, I would have wasted my time on that movie, and I would have been depressed for the rest of the day. I want happy endings. I’m not a sad ending kind of girl. I know people out there who love sad endings. I have a friend whose favorite movies involve people and pets dying because they’re “emotionally touching”. I’m not the same way. I hate endings like that.

I live in real life. I’m aware that bad things happen in the world. All the news does is tell me the sky is falling and that we’re all doomed. I swear, social media has only made things worse. It’s why I limit myself to what I do online. I don’t need more of this negative stuff in my life. When I pick up a book or sit down to watch a movie, I want to escape. I don’t care if bad things happen during the course of the book or movie, but I want there to be a happy ending. Happy endings are about hope. They give out the message that even though something bad happened, it doesn’t mean you have to stay in a pit for the rest of your life. Happy endings are really about overcoming obstacles. You can’t control everything that happens around you, but you can control whether or not you let it break your spirit. To me, happy endings emphasize that. That’s why I prefer them to the sad endings.

What about you? Are you a happy or sad ending kind of person?